Professional Learning

Table of Contents

With so many professional learning opportunities within the instructional technology field available, it can sometimes be a daunting task to keep track. Try some of these comprehensive opportunities to stay current.

Professional development through your workplace is always an ideal track to keep current with pedagogical practices and the potential of new technology tools adopted by the institution. However, many of these opportunities may not exist for smaller instructional design teams or institutions with limited online course offerings. Fortunately, instructional technology does not lack free professional development opportunities and connections with other professionals.

Social Networks

Facebook

Facebook for professional development? That is correct, Facebook provides groups where professionals and friends can connect on particular topics, and instructional design is one of them! Much like reading your regular Facebook feed, groups appear within your feed and provide a “profile” to see all posts. Then, depending on the number of users within the group, asking a question may garner an answer in minutes! I have found Facebook groups to be very helpful with locating information on various topics and broaden my understanding and knowledge.

• Instructional Design Discussion
• Instructional Design Newbie
• Instructional Designer
• Instructional Designers in Education

LinkedIn

LinkedIn also provides groups and the ability to increase your professional network. Much like the Facebook groups, there are numerous topics available. When exploring groups, you can see if one or more of your connections on LinkedIn are members. It is reaffirming to see your contacts involved in groups you are interested. There are public and private groups available. Recently, LinkedIn enhanced the discovery of groups by adding them as a segment of their search feature. Type in a topic, select groups, and explore. Below are some helpful groups on instructional design.

• Center for Instructional Design and Training
• Freelance in Instructional Design and E-Learning Industry
• Instructional Design Central (IDC)
• The Instructional Design Forum
• Instructional Systems Design Professional

Twitter

Twitter has so many content authors spread across the web. Among them are prominent professionals, news agencies, professional organizations, and governmental agencies. I have found Twitter an excellent resource in expanding my personal learning network and for professional networking. There are even Twitter chats where users search for a specific hashtag during a scheduled time and answer questions from moderators. Twitter chats are helpful even after the scheduled meeting time because the content is available for comments.

• Articulate
• Association for Educational Communications & Technology (AECT)
• eLearning Brothers
• eLearning Industry
• eLearning Network
• Instructional Technology Council (ITC)
• National Center on Universal Design for Learning
• The QM Instructional Designers Association
• WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)

Professional Organizations

Professional organizations are also great places to find networking and professional development opportunities through webinars, courses, and publications. Below are just some of the many eLearning-focused organizations. In addition, however, there are many state-level and consortium-driven organizations you can join to have more specific insights. I have found the training and recorded webinars from WCET, OLC, and QM valuable in providing easy-to-implement techniques and guidance into eLearning development.

• Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE)
• Association for Educational Communication and Technology (AECT)
• EDUCAUSE
• Instructional Technology Council (ITC)
• International Council for Open and Distance Learning (ICDE)
• International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)
• Online Learning Consortium (OLC)
• Quality Matters (QM)
• WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)

Webinars

I gain the most learning and insights from webinars. Setting aside the time for personal, professional development with recorded and live webinars works best for me. I certainly recommend the webinars from the websites below.

• EDUCAUSE Event Finder
• eLearning Industry Webinars
• Online Learning Consortium (OLC) Webinars
• Quality Matters (QM) Conference Session Recordings

Maintaining a Professional Online Presence

It is essential to create and maintain a polished digital presence through social media networks such as LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, ResearchGate, and other networks geared for professional networking and collaboration. While it is no surprise that we should maintain different personal and professional accounts, there are some tips for your professional profiles and portfolios to keep in mind. Below are some tips adapted from Discala (2019) and McCollum (2014).

1. Be professional - keep different social network accounts, or if you only prefer to manage one account, be mindful of what you say and do on the internet. Although you may have settings to place posts to different groups, sharing those posts is easy by copying and pasting or with screenshots.
2. Be your brand - take a high-quality professional picture of yourself and ensure you use that as your avatar or profile picture on all of your different social networks and personal websites. Be sure to have a few other shots of yourself and save them in a high resolution. It is much easier to decrease the size of an image than to enlarge it faithfully.
3. Be consistent - ensure all of your different online profiles have the same basic information. Consider marking your calendar for a quarterly or bi-monthly checkup. Having it as an online calendar reminder will make it easy to link to your different accounts in the description and set it as a recurring appointment.
4. Be engaging - especially on your blog or portfolio website. This is not to say be stoic or not yourself, be authentic and add to your brand through being relatable to others. Be the one-of-a-kind person you already are!
5. Be in control - as with being engaging and embodying your branding, keep your profiles safe and secure. Use strong and unique passwords for each social networking website. Do not divulge too much personal information to protect your identity further as well.

Feedback

At the time of writing, my only teaching experience is within the informal setting facilitating workshops. I facilitate the Universal Design and Access (UDA) intensive three-hour live online workshop and the Accessibility Tech Tuesday series of workshops. The Accessibility Tech Tuesday sessions are 45-minutes on particular topics related to course development and preparation. Below are some testimonials or comments from past participants of the Universal Design and Access workshop.

The UDL presentation was the best workshop I have ever attended; I recommend it to everyone.

I loved the accessibility and QM workshops! They were necessary in my opinion. I could not have completed the course design process without them!

I enjoyed attending the Universal Design and Access Workshop. Steve did a great job presenting a complex topic and breaking it down so that anyone can understand it. He was also able to host an interactive class via zoom.

Wow! What a great course with Steven. I have to admit, accessibility information overwhelms me (I felt even more anxiety in the APPQMR module that addressed accessibility), but as I began to practice making documents accessible and inspecting them for accessibility I started to see that the process of making things accessible isn’t as challenging as I originally thought it would be. By no stretch of the imagination do I feel like an expert, but I feel more confident about Universal Design and Accessibility, and frankly, I feel more compassionate toward learners who are challenged in ways that many others are not. I now clearly see the difference between making accommodations and simply making a course accessible.

References

Discala, J. (2019, February 21). Five ways to create a professional online presence. Inc.

McCollum, L. (2014, December 7). A beginner’s guide to establishing a professional online presence. Inside Higher Ed.